Good Eats
All Around Town Anntony’s Caribbean, 400 S. Tryon St., 704-339-0303; 2001 E. 7th St., 704-342-0749. All locations have different owners. A hint of the tropics; rotisserie chicken with Jamaican jerk sauce, ribs, Paradise Island fish special, curries, and Caribbean styled greens. $$ Azteca, 116 Woodlawn Rd., 704-525-5110; 9709 Independence Blvd., 704-814-9877; 1863 W. Franklin Blvd.…
Word On The Street
Liz Saliers Public School Teacher “Why wouldn’t she go to jail? If she did something crooked, she needs to pay, I don’t care how many table centerpiece ideas I’ve stolen from her.” Sally McElveen Mortgage Officer “No, that’s too easy. She should have to make her own embroidered blindfold and then be placed against a…
Is This…It?
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Somewhere along the way, The Strokes stopped getting stroked. Don’t get me wrong. They’re still “famous,” still appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone and Spin whenever those magazines need yet another inoculation of…
The Blotter
DIRTY DANCING: A middle school teacher filed a report while chaperoning an after-school dance. During the dance, a student came up behind her, grabbed her hips, and proceeded to grind on her backside. She pushed the young man off and took him straight to an administrator. HOME SWEET HOME: A man called a woman at…
From Barroom to Barn
Call a rocker a farmer and you could have a fight on your hands. But for the former leader of Jason & the Scorchers, Jason Ringenberg, Farmer Jason is not just a compliment, it’s also an accurate description of his new lifestyle — and even his new sound. Since becoming a father, Ringenberg has left…
See & Do
MARCH 11 – THURSDAY Richard Thompson’s effortless dance on the guitar and witty wordplay can fill a room with an air of dark romanticism. His history goes back to the legendary 60s British folk-rock combo Fairport Convention, followed by a few years as a duo with wife Linda, and plenty of solo albums and collaborations…
Sit & Spin
Bonnie “Prince” Billy Sings Greatest Palace Hits Drag City Whatever your take on an artist re-doing his own material, one thing this collection confirms: Will Oldham has completely disappeared up Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s ass. Whether Oldham’s getting the mail forwarded is debatable — last year’s folksy Master and Everyone suggests the artist-formerly-known-as-Palace still has minimalist…
Ask the Advice Goddess
Theatrical Release For several years, I’ve been close with two brothers. I fell into a semi-serious relationship with one, which ended when he cheated on me. Recently, the other brother confessed that he’s been in love with me for some time, but kept quiet because I’d been seeing other people. Previously, he was dating my…
Music Menu
WEDNESDAY 3.10 Dolorean — This Portland, Oregon, group led by Alex James quietly released one of last year’s most gorgeous discs, Not Exotic, earning props from The New York Times, The Onion’s AV Club, and almost everyone in between. The music is simple but not remotely simplistic: sparsely populated melodies loll gently by on the…
Stargazer
For All Signs The intellectual air people (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius) live in the world of ideas and theories. They are usually talkative and are assets at any social gathering. Their curiosity attracts them to those of the water temperament (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces) who experience the realm of feelings with intensity. Airs are good at avoiding…
Soundboard
Wednesday, Mar. 10 Amos’ Southend The Mile After w/ One Amazin’ Kid Ballantyne Resort The Sinatra Experience Baoding Robert Fernandez Blue Carl DiPonziano Bonterra Kim Carper, Tom Billotto & Donnie Marshall Brickhouse Tavern, Davidson Robin Brown & Andy Seets Cajun Queen 7th Street Gator Band Comet Grill Open Mic w/ Bill McDonald Double Door Inn…
Black (and blue) Comedy
A while back, one of Lewis Black’s former managers came up with the idea to sell his client as “America’s Foremost Authority on Everything.” Of course, Black’s not the biggest fan of the title (is he a big fan of anything?) — to him, it sounded a little too pompous, a little too “windbag,” a…
Home From The Holidays
After wrapping up its November program, the Charlotte Film Society wisely followed the national trend: It took time off for the holidays. Perhaps electing not to deal with the distractions of Christmas shopping, awards season and potentially foul weather, the CFS’s Second Week/Second Chance series bypassed a winter program altogether and simply waited for the…
Slacker on the Spot
Honor and truth are tested — and repeatedly abused — in Kenneth Lonergan’s richly provocative Lobby Hero by four people who, at first sight, seem to have dedicated their lives to upholding law and order. The three men and one woman whose betrayals are so intricately interconnected have one blatant trait in common. All wear…
Charlotte’s Oscar Winners
Is there anything more dull than the Academy when it gets into its “sweep” mentality? The Last Emperor, The English Patient, Titanic. . . regardless of what one thinks of these films, a complete domination of the ceremony usually means a lackluster night in front of the TV. And between The Lord of the Rings:…
Clueless at Clemson
American society has no universal form of “coming of age” ritual, but any young man who wants to be accepted into such organizations as football teams, the armed services, or college fraternities will have to endure some ritualized unpleasantness to gain that acceptance. Having passed through all three of these organizations in my youth, I…
View From The Couch
THE CHAPLIN COLLECTION, VOLUME TWO In Bernardo Bertolucci’s current drama The Dreamers, there’s a scene in which the two lads argue over who’s better, Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. The American kid supports Keaton while the French boy champions Chaplin, and it’s obvious that we’re supposed to side with the Yankee (all the more so…
Birds of A Feather
The Brave New Word of the Week is confluence. Or, as President Bush pronounces it, “conflatulence, snorthehehe.” Conflatu … er, confluence is the juncture of two or more streams forming a single new entity. Such a confluence occurred this past week, with the first stream being President Bush’s initial batch of re-election commercials touting his…
Film Clips
NEW RELEASES STARSKY & HUTCH Having now appeared together in several films, it might be time to regard Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson as Hollywood’s latest certified comedy team, a tradition that includes classic twofers like Laurel and Hardy, Hope and Crosby, and Lemmon and Matthau. Like their predecessors, these guys are able to bring…
Roads to Nowhere
Everybody loves to hate highway engineers. None of the roads they design is ever large enough or new enough to please us. The moment parts of Charlotte’s outerbelt were complete, a chorus of complaints arose that there weren’t enough lanes to suit our driving pleasure. Our latest grumble involves the lack of new lanes on…
Fired — and Changed Forever
In these times, when every spark of hope in the economy is heralded by politicians as a turnaround in unemployment, some people aren’t buying it. They’ve learned the hard way what it’s like to lose their jobs and struggle to find or create new ones. For many, it’s a long process, one that often leaves…
Letters
Climb Out of Liberal Mire As it is clear from some of the advertising you people seem proud to present (this seems to represent “the Charlotte of today”), I feel I am lowering myself to write. However, all the media need to be brought up out of the gutter and the mire where they seem…
Toothpaste, Aspirin and Contraception
For a moment, it looked as if the FDA was going to do the right thing. It was going to go with medical science and make emergency contraception available over the counter, so that women who’ve had unprotected sex would have ready access to a postcoital method that prevents pregnancy 89 percent of the time.…
News of the Weird
Toy story: Among the anticipated products at the February American International Toy Fair in New York City (according to the New York Post) were a gun that shoots boogers; a squeezable doll that smells like rotten eggs; a flea (based on a pro wrestling character) that emits rank body odors after warning, “I’m gonna blow”;…
I Am Woo Girl,
Woo Girls get a bad rap. You’ve read about them in Scene & Herd, spotted them in The City cartoons, or maybe you’ve experienced their zest for life first-hand. This subculture of women is said to migrate in packs from bar to bar on a mission to let the world know that you can take…
Dressler’s Restaurant
All Dressler’d Up A welcome addition to the neighborhood It’s hard to be a stranger in Dressler’s Restaurant since owner Jon Dressler is on hand to greet and converse with customers at each and every table. Dressler does it with an easygoing panache and eyes sparkling like a child who just looked out the window…
Arts Agenda
Classical Music Chamber Music at St. Peter’s Benefit Concert Chamber Music at St. Peter’s Annual Benefit Concert helps support the popular series of 18 free First Tuesday Concerts and other programs. First United Methodist Church, 8th and Tryon St. Sat., March 13, 8 p.m. $70, concert & reception, $30 concert only. 704-335-0009. Winthrop Tuba Choir…
The F-Bomb
With Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “performance” and Howard Stern’s recent X-rated talk making headlines and bringing complaints to media companies and the FCC, broadcasters are hopefully taking notice of the growing public attitude of “we’re mad as heck, and we’re not going to take it anymore.” That goes from racy radio talk and bad language…
All Dressler’d Up
It’s hard to be a stranger in Dressler’s Restaurant since owner Jon Dressler is on hand to greet and converse with customers at each and every table. Dressler does it with an easygoing panache and eyes sparkling like a child who just looked out the window and saw 18 inches of snow in the front…
Polluted Entertainment
I suspected we were in trouble the minute NBC’s peacock logo sprang up on the movie screen. I’ve been seeing the bird all my life, dating back to when it still unfurled its tail, and its image says one thing to my brain: “TV.” That’s why I was confused — why was it blazing down…
Stop, Do Not Uncork
Back during Prohibition in the 1920s, Americans were forced to pay homage to sleazy bootleggers to get a buzz. Choices boiled down to dangerously strong distilled spirits and whatever concoction someone brewed in their basement. Once the temperance-driven experiment failed 13 long years later, Americans breathed a collective sigh of relief, believing the federal government’s…
A Big Fat Nothin’
That Leslie and Leigh Keno make it look so damn easy to spot a bargain, don’t they? Best known for their work as appraisers on the PBS series Antiques Roadshow, the two identical twins are heartthrobs to antique hounds the world over. Saturday, they motivated me to head out to the Metrolina Fairgrounds for the…
